The present invention relates to a glow plug driving control method and a glow plug driving control apparatus which are mainly used for a starting aid of a diesel engine, and particularly to a glow plug driving control method and a glow plug driving control apparatus for a current variation reduction or the like.
As an energization method with respect to a glow plug used for a starting aid of a diesel engine for a vehicle, it is common to use a pulse width modulation (PWM) that has an advantage of a small power loss at the time of a voltage control and of flexible voltage setting or the like based on an effective voltage, and various driving control methods and apparatuses, based on such a pulse width modulation, have been proposed and put into practical use (for example, refer to JP-A-2009-13983).
However, when the driving control based on the effective voltage is applied to the glow plug, a current variation according to a voltage variation is also produced. Since a power dissipation of the glow plug is high, the current variation according to the voltage variation also becomes large. The current variation may reach several tens of amperes at the time of a peak. There occurs problems that electrical stress due to the current variation of a heater portion is applied, and expedited deterioration of the glow plug is caused, and that lead to a short life.